A pavilion is temporary structure or prosthesis that “changes the face” of a particular place, just like a mask. According to one of our most prominent poets, Octavio Paz, a mask is the threshold between the other and me, between who I am and everything that I am not. By contrast and juxtaposition, a mask makes its own otherness evident. Nevertheless, when it hides this otherness, it does so in a way of synthesis and stratification: a new layer unfolds into the previous one, building a new narrative. This process can help to explain how identity—which is often thought of as being innate or natural—is actually continuously revisited and reinvented.

By overlapping two very different topographies and ideologies, new discussions on place and identity are raised. A series of mirrored platforms act as a liminal zone that, on one hand, occupies and appropriates John Madejski Garden and on the other reflects the V&A building that encloses the garden, blending in with its surroundings. In Lacanian terms, this surface could act as a ‘mirror stage’ to illustrate the conflicting nature between how we imagine ourselves, how we project ourselves, and how others perceive us.

The title of the installation – which is a quote from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar – is in reference to both the literal reflectivity of the platforms and the work’s philosophical inspiration.

The platforms are laid out in a grid like pattern, referencing one of Mexico’s most emblematic territorializations: The Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, erected on a lake in the early 14th century. The channels, streets and “chinampas” of the early city can still be recognized in today´s urban structure. Mexico City´s fragmented and stratified nature does not hold on to the past, but instead is based in what is still alive or capable of staying alive in the everyday life. The city materializes the continuous flow of additions, subtractions and reorganizations of social life and collective identity. In a similar fashion, the platforms can be appropriated and rearranged by the public, sparking different degrees of interaction and building new narratives on the space.

You Know, You Cannot See Yourself So Well as by Reflection was selected from four shortlisted proposals by Mexican architects and designers as part of Dual Year Mexico-United Kingdom 2015, a year-long celebration of Mexican culture in the UK and vice versa.